5 Cloud Computing myths that just won’t go away

At frevvo, we’ve been offering cloud-based solutions for years. IT Departments are obviously getting better and better about understanding Cloud but some misconceptions keep showing up. Here are some that simply refuse to die:

1. Cloud is less secure than on-premise
This is primarily a perception issue. Most security breaches including many recent high-profile ones have taken place in traditional corporate data centers. That’s because most of them have limited security expertise and have difficulty performing regular security audits and assessments. In contrast, security is critical for any public cloud vendor and they implement multi-layered approaches to security taking into account data centers, storage, networks, backups, audits and policies.

2. The biggest benefit of cloud is low costs
You can obviously reduce certain costs but it’s not the case that cloud apps are always cheaper. It’s almost never just about saving money. Often, the biggest benefit is that it’s easy to try new ways to do things. That’s because you can easily add or reduce temporary resources (costs) without big capital costs and deploy solutions fast. Want to try out a new automated workflow? It takes days to build/deploy and it’s super inexpensive to give it a shot. If it doesn’t work, un-deploy, stop paying and try a different approach. Of course, you have to make sure your cloud provider isn’t locking you into long-term contracts and their associated costs.

3. Public cloud is the only cloudPrivate cloud refers to a cloud computing platform/application that is deployed behind a corporate firewall under IT Department control. The main goal is to get past that security perception from #1 above but there can be legitimate reasons e.g. regulations. Private cloud platforms and applications can offer many of the same benefits as public cloud including self-service, resource sharing etc. There is no one-size-fits all when it comes to Cloud.

4. We must have ONE cloud vendor
Cloud is not one thing: there are different deployment models (public, private), service models (IaaS, SaaS) and applications. Business goals come in all shapes and sizes and aligning them with the benefits of a particular cloud solution should be the deciding factor rather than any attempt to standardize on a single vendor’s offerings.

5. If it’s cloud, it must be better
It’s unfortunate that so many vendors engage in cloud-washing – dressing up their old technology as cloud. Cloud applications can offer huge benefits but you still have to design and build your application sensibly, perform the required testing, setup environments, train users etc. You can’t take shortcuts in those areas or you’ll end up with a poorly-performing cloud application.

Cloud computing is obviously growing rapidly. But there are still plenty of distortions floating around about the cloud. It’s important to do the legwork, understand the choices out there and how they can align with your business goals. By making informed decisions, your organization can reap real benefits from cloud computing.